Ebook The Forager Harvest A Guide to Identifying Harvesting and Preparing Edible Wild Plants Samuel Thayer 8580000212075 Books

Product details Paperback 368 pages Publisher Foragers Harvest Press; 1 edition (May 15, 2006) Language English ISBN-10 0976626608

The Forager Harvest A Guide to Identifying Harvesting and Preparing Edible Wild Plants Samuel Thayer 8580000212075 Books Reviews

• This is a book about identifying, harvesting, storing, and preparing edible wild plants; a topic receiving considerable interest in our ‘farm-to-table’ world. Thayer presents us with a masterful celebration of the enjoyment of wild foods. The author is an internationally recognized authority on edible wild plants. He is an autodidact from childhood.
  This book is heavy with information. It includes Thayer’s philosophy which has grown up around the careful sowing, harvesting, and storing/preparing wild foods. This is not to say it is a dull account. There is a strong feeling of affection by the author in maintaining and sustaining wild edibles. Humor comes through in his many anecdotes from his personal and life long experience.
  More than 30 wild plants are examined in detail, with beautiful color pictures of the plants, their harvest, storage, and preparation. Descriptions of their flowers and fruits and any distinguishing marks are noted. The range and habitat of each are given. Information on how to harvest each plant, along with
  direction on preparation is provided in sufficient detail for the novice harvester. Nutritional value along with some basic recipes accompanies each of the plants Thayer details.
  The section on edible versus poisonous plants is presented early in the book. Allergic reactions and plant intolerance are examined to present a clear picture of the knowledge and care that goes into the use of these plants as a food source. Thayer cleverly acknowledges the distinction between plant toxicity and human stupidity when it comes to the preparation and consumption of wild plants. He lives by the maxim that plants are considered edible only insofar as they taste good, are pleasant to eat, and care is taken to consume them in proper amounts.
  This book is a delightful compendium of useful facts and anecdotes from Thayer’s lifetime of experience. Why wild foods, he asks. He sees one of the greatest benefits of eating these plants is to be reminded that the supermarket is not the source of all food. The sunshine, rain, and soil remind us that our most basic needs come directly from our earth, not from any artificial creation or technology.
• What a well written book. I've been studying primitive skills for years now and this book is a phenomenal read. I've had the pleasure of doing a walking identification with Sam Thayer, and he is a wealth of information based on personal experience. I own 6 other wild edible books and honestly this is the easiest to read or take with you on a hike and start ID'ing immediately.
• I was introduced to Gibbon's, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" at the age of 7. From that moment, I devoured any wild food literature I could get my hands on. I live in Maine, and Samuel's two books are by far the most useful, honest, thoughtful, and enjoyable wild food books I have ever read. Truly a modern-day Gibbons. I have been consistently disappointed with wild food literature. Most of what is on the market either regurgitated information from Gibbons books in the 60's, or it is misinformation, out of context, with authors not having personal experience with each plant. Not the case with this book. This book has transformed and reinvigorated my love of wild food.
• I am a botanist and I'm in love with this book. Admittedly, it treats only a few dozen plants, but each is described in detail, with methods of distinguishing it in the field from similar species, harvesting, and preparing it. Numerous color photos are very useful. There are good general discussions of plant identification, harvesting, and preservation. The author complains about previous edible plant references, which exhaustively list hundreds of plants but give inadequate information on each, and frequently recycle information from previous literature, allowing misinformation to creep in (an undeniable problem). Thayer proposes that writers on edible plants should provide only information from their own experience or else specifically referenced information, a praiseworthy code of conduct and one that really makes this book shine. When he gives you detailed instructions for when and how to gather and prepare a plant, you know that he's actually done it himself and it worked. I like his standards for the plants as well Food should taste good! If it doesn't taste good, he says, don't eat it! So, while other books provide long lists of "survival foods" that would gag a goat, Thayer discusses only the plants that he actually enjoys eating. He tells you what sort of quality to expect in the final products, and whether they will be worth the work you put into them. The only volume I can recall seeing of remotely similar quality was Steve Brill's book, which dealt with a different set of plants (emphasizing the common "weedy" species that Thayer is not particularly interested in), so if you already have Brill, you can buy this too. Otherwise, if you want to start learning to use edible wild plants, start with this volume.